Glass Maze Every jumbled pile of person

Fitts and Startts’ Law

Pierre Igot discovered that the click-through behavior in Snow Leopard’s Finder has progressed from unintuitive to batshit insane:

How is the user supposed to “know” and remember intuitively that click-through now only works in icon view mode and not in list view mode and column view mode? And how is the user supposed to “know” and remember intuitively that, even though click-through no longer works, “double-click-through” (to coin a phrase) still does?

There’s no question of users knowing any of this, of course, and certainly no question of them storing it in the muscle memory they use to deal with the core UI of their operating system.

I’ve long since given up trying to figure out how the Finder is going to react in any given situation, but this just rankles. In fact, I think it cries out for a new UI Law. Let’s call it Fitts and Startts’ Law:

Any sufficiently inconsistent UI behavior is indistinguishable from randomness.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if double-clicking a file in a background window caused a parade of flatulent spider monkeys to fart their way across my screen. That would be somewhat entertaining, at least, and no less unexpected than what actually happens.

(via Gruber)

It’s not every day you see a Mac person willing to thoughtfully criticize his OS. In fact the last time I saw one do so was… well… never! Ramsey for the win!

Thanks for this. This is driving me crazy. Pedestrian filing activities have become a complete pain! Sadly, this isn’t the only issue.

I get the distinct impression that Apple lost its way in ‘Human Interface Design’ some years ago. Fashion, glitz and bling now take priority over style, intuition and usability. It would seem the legacy of those who gave us the logical elegance of the ‘Classic MacOS’ is being progressively purged by the successor generation’s arrogance – fuelled (no doubt) by New Apple’s commercial success of recent years.

Mr. Jobs – you were asked to fix the roof, the plumbing and the electrics – and yes, you did. However, you did so by demolishing the previous architects’ lovely Victorian edifice and replacing it with a ‘brutalist’ monstrosity. And please don’t tell me in rebuttal that the customers ‘love it’ because those who remember the old ways – DON’T!